


A Seer's Reflection

by ichor (sbzpruiosnejre)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandonment, Don't copy to another site, Godric's Hollow, M/M, Memories, Nurmengard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21945487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbzpruiosnejre/pseuds/ichor
Summary: Gellert Grindelwald has never handled abandonment well; nor has he ever been particularly fond of loneliness.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Bathilda Bagshot & Gellert Grindelwald
Kudos: 14





	A Seer's Reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AccioSmutticus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioSmutticus/gifts).



_early July 1899_

"This is your room," Great-Aunt Bathilda mumbled, showing him to the poky room filled with parchment and boxes. He stared, disappointed; it had been his decision to move here, his urging that had given him this new home. Yet he'd expected more of a welcome. They may never have been close, but his great-aunt surely should have prepared a room for him? Apparently not.

Nodding, he carried his suitcase in, thudding it down on the bare floorboards. "Thank you."

She turned to go.

"Could you clear me some space, please, auntie?" he asked, bewildered by her absent-mindedness.

"Can't you?"

He spread out his hands, managing an amused smile. "My wand was confiscated. I can't--"

"With your hands." Bathilda stared at him. "Pick them up."

The smile vanished. With his... was he a muggle? Did she think him a squib? "I don't understand."

She pottered forwards, picking up a sheaf of papers and passing them to him. "Just put them in the boxes."

"You have a wand, don't you?" Taking the bunch of notes, he glanced briefly at them. The writing was illegible, scrawling scratches of quill spiky and wobbly all at once. Whatever necessitated taking up an entire room was clearly some part of her research. Realising she hadn't answered, he looked up, blinking as he watched her retreating back as she headed down the stairs. With a sigh, he began to fill what space the boxes still held, packing them in as haphazardly as she had left his new bedroom.

By the time he had finished clearing up, the sun had risen midway through the sky. Suitcase clips flicked, he set about retrieving what few possessions he'd brought with him. Plain robes, free of any reference to the school that had shunned his ideas, to fill the chest of drawers beside his bed. Other such essentials went with them. Though his family had a keen collection of artifacts holed in their Austrian manor, he'd neither bothered asking or _borrowing_ any. Instead, with his clothes aside, he unearthed tomes thick with notes and yellowed pages. His research, far more important than that of his historian aunt, bound to journals pulled together by his father, his grandfather, and now he.

Gold lettering declared it: _die Heiligtümer des Todes_.

These, special as they were, found a place beneath his bed, kept in a perfect row and stashed aside the furniture. His aunt would not disturb them easily, though he was not concerned about her finding them. She had her own interest in the history of the Deathly Hallows, weak and scholarly as it was.

He made his way downstairs. Bathilda sat at the kitchen table poring over her manuscripts.

"Where is the graveyard?" he asked. His arrival, by side-along apparition courtesy of his irritated father, hadn't permitted him a chance to look.

She glanced over her spectacles at him. "Leave by the front door, turn left and follow the path." Her focus fixed back on her papers. "You'll be after the Peverell gravestones, I expect?"

"Yes." Gellert strode to the door, stepping carefully around a leather bag teeming with more parchment. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "Thank you for letting me live with you, auntie."

Sniffing, her quill scratched a few times before she replied. "It's nice to have some company."

"I expect it is."

"Oh! Gellert," she said, looking up. "Be careful, won't you, dear? You're ever so young... don't get lost." He blinked. "Stick by the path, and be kind to the neighbours. The Dumbledores are good people. Terribly unfortunate... horrible what happened to them." She sighed.

Unwilling to get caught up in either whatever idle gossip she had to share, he didn't bother to remind her that he was sixteen, almost seventeen, and perfectly capable of handling such a small village. Muggles mixed in or not. "I'll be back for dinner," he called, and closed the door shut behind him.

He shut the iron gate behind him as he exited the garden. It seemed pointless, given the Bagshot abode was relatively small, and gates would do nothing to stop anyone - even non-magical - who wished to enter. _An oddity_ , he thought with a grimace. Though an absent one, with any luck. Her obsession in writing history's tales measured his own, seeking to claim the Hallows.

He followed the path, but it was pointless to - the fenced land of the dead was in his sights immediately. They practically lived on top of it.

The graveyard was lined with stones of familiar shapes, nothing grander than small monoliths and tiny statuettes. No great tomb, not like the one his grandfather lay in. He hadn't expected it to be so quaint. How dull. Yet peaceful too, one to be disturbed by roving eyes - there must be clues here. It had been his grandfather who'd first suggested the Peverell Theory, that the three brothers might well be the very same as those who had met Death. Whether that was some sort of incredible figure or simply an explanation for the powerful magic nested in the Hallows. If he could unearth the origins, he would become more acquainted with the hallows. Enough to become master of death.

He found the grave with ease. Peverell. Ignotus Peverell. _The Third Brother_. His hunt for the hallows could truly begin, in the very place the cloak had no doubt been passed down generations. Perhaps even contained still within Godric's Hollow. Gellert crouched before the stone to examine the faded writing for some sort of sign. Not even a hint.

Disappointment reigned. The engraving was ludicrously worn away, revealing nothing but dips that suggested the writing had been there. He supposed, over time, someone had taken the time to chisel only the deceased's name, and not bothered with even dates. Or perhaps he was reading things that weren't there.

From his robes he found his hidden possession, one he wished not to part with. His aunt might well have gossiped it away into confiscation. He removed the wand - not his own, but that of his grandfather - hidden in the lining of his sleeve. Taking up the wooden stick, he glanced up to check nobody was in sight, and began to add to the rock, magic scratching in the sign. His symbol.

The Hallows.

Once done, he stood, head bowed, admiring his work. The summer heat demanded he return to his new home, his straw-blond hair sticking to his skin, yet he paused. There was somebody near, another entering the cemetery. Tall, yet young, perhaps a little older than himself.

Behind the figure, he spotted the silhouette of his great-aunt in the kitchen, poking her nose against the window, flapping a hand in some kind of signal. No. A silent communication. To approach? He frowned, but nodded all the same. Keeping her content would be easy enough, and keep her from watching him further. Apparently she wasn't _that_ focused on her research.

"Hello," he said, with all the confidence he could muster, given the glaring accent in his voice. Not hidden enough, not perfect. He'd have to work on it. "This is rather awkward," he admitted with charming ease, "given the surroundings. I'm Gellert - Gellert Grindelwald. I've just moved here. With my aunt, actually. Bathilda Bagshot?"

The man with the ice-blue eyes stuck out a hand. "I'm Albus. Albus Dumbledore. I live next door."

* * *

He knew how it went next. Their first meeting, the one that would begin the journey to where he stood now.

Removing himself from the reverie of past emotions, Grindelwald pressed his forehead against the cold stone wall. His prison. Created by himself, perfect by design - the place he would die. He felt it often, the future promise of death's frosty fingers. How far away, he did not know. All he knew was boredom. Visits of officials still hunting down the remnants of his cause, guards who begrudged him a newspaper in the understanding of his _uselessness_ , and him. Albus. He'd come soon, when he remembered his old friend. An older enemy. An ancient lover.

Magic might have been taken from him, drained by the enchantments instilled in the very walls, freshened by wizards who had a quarter of the power he'd once had. But there was always the Sight; a struggle at times, but his saviour. Replaying memories drove him insane, and yet still he did it. To find what he'd done wrong. Wishing he could fix those tenuous threads connected to his downfall. Recalling how things could have been, what he'd Seen and what had not been, for the Sight was not perfect, not at all. Often correct as it was, it had lied to him. Master of Death, Hallows in his hands, aside a man who had seen to his downfall.

He turned towards the bars, where a guard sat reading. That itch of boredom demanded entertainment, but today, faced with the haunting gaze of Albus' eyes lingering in his mind... he left the bastard alone.

He'd sooner sleep off his regrets than amplify his anger at his abandonment.

* * *


End file.
